Archetypal Battles and The Blooming Self: Individuation in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha
Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha takes place in the time of the Buddha. Although the traditional Buddha is in the story and later parallels Siddhartha, he is at the outskirts of Hesse’s attention. The real focus is on the man Siddhartha and how he achieves the enlightened self-actualization of the Buddha. Siddhartha’s progress in confronting the archetypes of his subconscious is presented throughout the novel, with major growth being seen as a result of his interaction with the other characters who embody those archetypes. Siddhartha’s growth to enlightenment depends on his own interaction with himself and the archetypes that inhabit his inner world. As Siddhartha grows beyond the ego and its manifestations, he achieves self-actualization and can then be seen not just as a foil for the Buddha but what a man must experience in order to obtain the self –actualization or enlightenment that the Buddha himself might have achieved.
Siddhartha’s close friend Govinda represents the shadow archetype. Hesse frames Govinda’s character as Siddhartha’s shadow early on. Govinda “wanted to follow Siddhartha, the splendid beloved. And someday, when Siddhartha became a god, someday when he joined the radiant ones, then Govinda would follow him, as his friend, as his companion, as his servant, as his lance bearer, his shadow” (Hesse 8). Hesse characterizes Govinda as a helper to Siddhartha even though he is his shadow. Jung’s concept of the shadow argues that the shadow is built in to the psyche and must be understood and overcome in order for the individual to grow. Although the shadow holds more negative aspects of the personality, it still can be seen as a positive component of the psyche because the individual can confront it and learn from it. In the book An Introduction to Jung’s Psychology, Frieda Fordham explains that “Jung calls that other side of ourselves, which is to be found in the personal unconscious, the shadow. The shadow is the inferior being in ourselves…who is everything we are not” (Fordham 49). Siddhartha’s description of Govinda shows how he functions as Siddhartha’s shadow: “Next to him lived Govinda, his shadow, following the same paths, undergoing the same efforts. They seldom spoke more to each other than was required by service and exercise” (Hesse 15). The shadow resides within the mind, so if the individual is not aware of it and not contacting it for growth, then little communication will ensue, but the shadow is still there nevertheless. When contact is made between the conscious and subconscious shadow, the shadow will challenge the seeker’s self- concept, creating an opportunity for the individual to learn from what he may hide from himself. In the book Jung’s Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism, Radmila Moacanin writes, “In Jungian analysis one must deal with one’s shadow, the dark rejected part of the psyche, detect projections and egocentric aims. The intensity of the emotional turmoil is not repressed or devalued, but the energy that is contained there is utilized in the process of change” (Moacanin 87). As Moacanin explains that which is rejected or low within the mind can not be escaped; instead, the potentiality of the darker aspects of self should be used as a catalyst for personal change. This confrontation with the shadow is not just an experience but also a journey. Hesse identifies Govinda as Siddhartha’s shadow before too much action takes place, foreshadowing Siddhartha’s later growth as he develops understanding of and movement away from his shadow.
Although Govinda is Siddhartha’s companion and seems amiable, as Siddhartha’s shadow, Govinda attempts to hold Siddhartha back from new growth and new challenges by appealing to Siddhartha’s fears and doubts. Even though Govinda follows Siddhartha throughout his quest for ascension, Govinda questions him and channels doubt at every major cross road. When Siddhartha says he wants to be a samana, “Govinda blanched upon hearing those words” and attempts to deter Siddhartha by asking him if his father approves (Hesse 8). Govinda follows Siddhartha’s will yet is a conduit for all of his weakness and fears. Govinda’s function as shadow is also revealed in their encounter with Guatama. While Govinda wants to follow a spiritual authority who has all the answers, Siddhartha wants to find his own way. Govinda’s eagerness to follow shows that he is Siddhartha’s shadow because the weaker aspect of the self prefers to follow the easier path. When Siddhartha expresses interest in pursuing another path, Govinda does not want to separate from Siddhartha, to which Siddhartha replies, “I have often wondered: ‘Will Govinda ever take a step alone, without me, prompted by his own soul?’” (Hesse 29). Siddhartha develops the strength to see his friend as he is. Govinda acts as a shadow, only following in the footsteps of others, burdened by a weakness that reveals a lack of self-trust. Siddhartha questions Govinda’s motivations, seeing his own lack of self-trust as an attempt to hold Siddhartha back. Siddhartha elects to follow his own path and recognizes that Govinda must do that too or forever exist as a shadow figure.
Although it is apparent to Siddhartha early on that his shadow must be overcome, Siddhartha struggles to confront his own mask or persona that he uses to function in society. Fordham explains that “The persona is a collective phenomena, a facet of the personality that might equally well belong to somebody else, but it is often mistaken for individuality” (Fordham 48). Within interpersonal interactions, there is always an element of exchange. We exchange information and affect with one another, but due to our survival instinct, humans have developed social codes that create a sense of order but that can also compromise individual will. There is safety in numbers and security in reflecting the views of those in your community. The risk is developing a masked public persona which does not reflect the true self. However, to live without a mask, there is also risk: losing the safety of the herd. After Siddhartha triumphs over his shadow, he is finally able to perceive his inner mask, or his generic approach to life, which he had mistakenly viewed as genuine when really it had been holding him back. Siddhartha thinks to himself:
“There is only one reason, a single one, why I know nothing about myself, why Siddhartha has remained so foreign to myself, so unknown. The reason is that I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing myself! I was seeking Atman, I was seeking Brahma. I was willing to dismember my ego and peel it apart in order to find the core of all peels in its unknown innermost essence: to find Atman, Life, the Divine, the Ultimate. But I myself was lost in the process” (Hesse 36).
Siddhartha realizes that instead of being purely himself, he was seeking peace in exteriority. The exterior world, with its titles and rules, impose a pre-formed identity on the individual while obscuring the kernel of true reality within the person. To follow the herd blindly, a person risks losing his authenticity on the one hand and on the other his connection with the Dharma, the ultimate truth. Siddhartha explains:
“It was the ego, whose meaning and being I wanted to learn. It was the ego, of which I wanted to rid myself, which I wanted to overcome. But I could not overcome it, I could only deceive it, could only free from it, only hide from it. Truly, nothing in this world has occupied my thoughts as much as this ego of mine, this enigmatic fact that I live, that I am one and separated and isolated from all others, that I am Siddhartha And there is nothing in the world I know less about than myself than Siddhartha!” (Hesse 35).
The ego functions as a mask. It shapes itself to what flatters it even if it is not an authentic manifestation of the self. Because Siddhartha recognizes he had been chasing identity outside of himself, he now has the ability to move on and progress. To discover himself is to discover the Dharma, for the ultimate truth reveals complete being that transcends exteriority. Siddhartha says, “I will no longer let Siddhartha slip away! …I will learn from me, from myself, I will be my own pupil: I will get to know myself, the secret that is Siddhartha… he had been his father’s son, had been a Brahmin, high-ranking, spiritual. Now he was only Siddhartha, the awakened, and nothing more” (Hesse 36 & 38). Siddhartha recognizes that he lived his life through animated titles, but when he parts from his weakness, or shadow, he realizes that his social roles were masking his true self. In a spiritual context, his true self is an awakening, universal consciousness. Becoming entangled in the exterior world and exterior identity is to fall into illusion, confounding the limits of our vision for the extent of it. Hesse describes how Siddhartha’s mask is a function of the ego, “His ego had hidden away in this priesthood, in this pride, in this intellectuality. There his ego had taken root and had grown, while he thought he had killed it with fasting” (Hesse 88). Siddhartha attempts to eliminate his ego by living according to the different roles he filled, yet he never confronted his ego on an intimate, self-directed way. It takes more than exterior motions to grow beyond the one’s own attachment to exteriority. To full awaken, one must move beyond the personality and self-concept in relation to one’s place in exterior reality and open the mind to universal consciousness, which is unfettered by transient exterior trappings. A Buddha does not perceive or experience self as the “I” but as the “all.” Because Siddhartha depended so strongly on his persona in the past, he was not able to grow towards the enlightenment he sought. Moacanin explains how the ego or persona can block growth in Buddhist terms:
“The greatest obstacle is the ego. Ego — or rather one’s view of one’s ‘I’ — is at the root of all problems and sufferings, according to Buddhist thought. When Buddhists talk about ego they refer to the illusory belief in a solid, concrete, separate entity, independent and disconnected from any other phenomena. In that sense naturally the ego becomes an insurmountable barrier between oneself and the rest of the world, with no possibility of true communication and communion, not only with others but also with the depth of oneself” (Moacanin 83).
Siddhartha may have not realized that his spiritual practices were rooted in his ego, as they were pre-constructed roles he filled, but Hesse shows that this type of egotism is counter-productive in the individual seeking union with ultimate reality. Without the masks Siddhartha wore, he now has to find meaning and identity within himself. Jung once said, “I believe that the thing which I call the Self is an ideal center, equidistant between the Ego and the Unconscious, and it is probably equivalent to the maximum natural expression of individuality, in a state of fulfillment or totality” (Serrano 65). Jung’s observation marks the Self at a centered place within the mind. To achieve such balance one must not fall into extremes. To operate in a way that is controlled by the shadow would allow the Unconscious to determine one’s actions. To live by exteriority, or at least to live according to exterior self-concept, would be to give the ego too much power. Siddhartha’s confrontation with the shadow makes him more conscious. Because Siddhartha finally can perceive that his approach to enlightenment or individuation was rooted in ego, he can find his own balanced path to self-actualization. The problem with the samanas is “Instead of focusing on finding the self, the Samanas teach the suppression of the Self or Atman through ascetic exercises and meditation” (60). The ironic thing about the samanas, the wandering ascetics, is that they try to find the perfect balance of Self, the awareness of the Dharma, in the exterior semiotic markers of self-deprivation. However, the Middle Path sees this as unbalanced and as falling into the illusion that exteriority reveals itneriority. Because Siddhartha was suppressing his true self and living a persona rather than a genuine life, samana hood turned out to be a false path. Going through the motions of deprivation was not bringing him closer to true awareness of self or the Dharma.
Despite Siddhartha’s growth, Hesse does not allow Siddhartha’s character to reach enlightenment until he confronts Kamala who represents Siddhartha’s anima or feminine nature. Before Siddhartha even encounters her character, his own mind reveals that his struggle with his shadow has now transitioned to confronting his anima. Fordham states that the anima:
“…has two aspects, a light and a dark, corresponding to the different qualities and types of women; on the one hand the pure, the good, the noble goddess-like figure, on the other the prostitute, the seductress, or the witch. It is when a mas has repressed his feminine nature, when he under-values feminine qualities or treats women with contempt or neglect, that this dark aspect is most likely to present itself” (Fordham 54).
Throughout Siddhartha’s spiritual journey, he has seen himself as superior to others and operates purely in a masculine state, pure logic, divorced from any feminine qualities, such as emotional connection. Now that Siddhartha is free from the mask and shadow that would have held him back, he can discover the passion that dwells within him. In the book Jung and Eastern Thought, Harold Coward writes, “In Jung’s writing anima is the technical term used to refer to the ‘soul image’ or feminine component in a man’ (Coward 44). Because Siddhartha has neglected his feminine side, the anima gains power over him, and he is compelled to confront her and learn from her. Hesse shows that Siddhartha’s later relationship with Kamala is a working out of his anima when he has Siddhartha dream of Govinda, but “…it was no longer Govinda, it was a woman, and full breasts welled out from the woman’s garment, and Siddhartha lay on her breast and drank” (Hesse 45). This dream reveals that Siddhartha’s subconscious mind knows the next step in the journey of individuation although what that is is obscured in symbolic language. His subconscious mind transforms the obstacle of Govinda as shadow to the new challenge Siddhartha must face: the anima. Siddhartha’s words also reveal that Kamala is the anima when he says, “When I walked into your grove, I was taking the first step. It was my resolve to learn love from this most beautiful woman” (Hesse 56). Siddhartha journeys into the dark and secluded realm of the subconscious in order to discover his emotional aspect through the anima. Hesse frames Siddhartha’s new life around Kamala, indicating that his main purpose in the bustle of the city and the world is to integrate his anima into his self. Hesse writes, “Here, with Kamala, lay the value and purpose of his current life, and not with Kamaswami’s business… he always went back to beautiful Kamala, learned the art of love…She understood him better than Govinda had understood him, she was more similar to Siddhartha” (Hesse 60 & 64). Hesse’s description of Siddhartha’s focus on the anima shows how essential the integration of his feminine side is to his individuation process, for Kamala as anima is more important to his growth than Govinda as the shadow. Integrating the anima is an important step in balancing the psyche, and it is within a balanced state that one is better able to transcend the realm of duality and connect with ultimate truth.
Siddhartha’s time with Kamala allows him to incorporate the anima as an active part of himself, yet the individual can not easily obtain self-actualization without a guru, or therapist, seen in the character of Vasudeva, to assist him in his journey. The ferryman, Vasudeva, is the guru and thus can be seen as a representation of the Jungian psychoanalyst. After Siddhartha experiences the world and his inferior functions, he feels lost and must seek guidance. Hesse supplies guidance to the seeker through Vasudeva as seen when Siddhartha naturally remarks, “A friendly ferryman ferried me then, I will go to him. From his hut my way once led me to a new life, which has now grown old and died — may my new way, my new life start out from there!” (Hesse 89). Vasudeva’s occupation of ferryman is a perfect symbol of what the therapist or guru must do to help the individual reach self-actualization: he must guide them across the river of experience and thought to the other side of the journey. The waters of thought must be traversed and the guru acts as guide, making the journey safer and faster than it would otherwise be. Hesse portrays Vasudeva as a therapist type figure when he describes how he reacts to Siddhartha’s words:
“As he spoke, on and on, and Vasudeva listened with a silent face, Siddhartha felt Vasudeva’s listening, felt it more intensely than ever before…Still speaking, still admitting and confessing, Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no longer a human being, listening to him, that this motionless listener was absorbing his confession like a tree absorbing rain, that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God himself, that he was eternity itself” (Hesse 116).
In this case, Siddhartha projects the God-image on Vasudeva, or the therapist-guide, which is natural in psychotherapy. Nevertheless, Hesse maintains a Jungian spin on Vasudeva as the ferryman remains humble, often suggesting that Siddhartha listen to the river rather than ask him questions. On the road to self-actualization, the seeker in stillness may find more guidance from his own consciousness, part of the transcendent reality, than becoming engulfed with exterior answers. Moacanin clarifies the role of the Jungian therapist in the individuation process:
“The process of individuation is essentially an unconscious, autonomous process, in which the psyche in its natural and spontaneous urge for wholeness is striving to harmonize its conscious and unconscious contents. Thus the therapist, says Jung, ‘must follow nature as a guide,’ and his or her intervention is ‘less a question of treatment than of developing the creative possibilities latent in the patient himself” (Moacanin 42).
Vasudeva is there for Siddhartha; he listens to Siddhartha and helps guide him to an independent self-actualization, thus acting as a Jungian therapist would. He helps Siddhartha realize the truth within himself by pointing out that the answers are in the river, within nature all around him and within himself, his own river of thought. Vasudeva expresses universal truth, even the universal truth that he is not the God like figure that Siddhartha imagines him to be. He thus acts as a model of the self-actualized, more enlightened state that Siddhartha aims to embody.
Once Siddhartha reaches self-actualization, it is clear that he is a foil of the Buddha or even the man who became the Buddha, for Hesse argues throughout the text that all emanations of life are just many representations of the one. Hesse sets up a framework of synchronicity in order to later create a parallel between Siddhartha and Guatama. Hesse describes, “He [Siddhartha] had died; a new Siddhartha had awoken from sleep. He too would grow old, he too would have to die someday — Siddhartha was ephemeral, every formation was ephemeral. But today he was young, was a child, the new Siddhartha, and was full of joy” (Hesse 88). Hesse’s description captures the ephemeral nature of form and being while intimating that the essence of man is in a constant metamorphosis. To awake is to see that change as part of the universal rule, and thus clinging to exteriorities that are actually temporary is what causes suffering. The river also illustrates this principle as in dwelling:
“…all of it together, all voices, all goals, all yearnings, all sufferings, all pleasures, all good and evil — the world was everything together. Everything together was the river of events, was the music of life…when he did not bring his soul to any one voice and did not enter them with his ego, but listened to all of them, heard the wholeness, the oneness — -then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was ‘om’: perfection” (Hesse 119).
The river which Siddhartha so intimately experiences holds the threads of multiplicity and infinite potentiality. Because Hesse establishes a world in which infinite potentiality could be condensed in one form, he is able to later solidify the parallel between Siddhartha and Guatama with his description of their enlightened smiles as witness by Govinda:
“…this smile of Siddhartha’s was exactly the same, was exactly the identical still, fine, impenetrable, perhaps kindly, perhaps quizzical, wise, thousandfold smile of Gautama, the Buddha, as he himself, Govinda, has seen it with awe a hundred times. This, Govinda, knew was how the Perfect Ones smiled…Govinda stood for a brief while, leaning over Siddhartha’s silent face, which he had just kissed, which had just been the setting of all formations, all Becoming, all Being. The face was unaltered after the depth of the thousandfold forms had closed again under its surface” (Hesse 131–132).
Siddhartha and Gautama can both radiate the same physical reflection of their inner peace. In both characters infinite manifestation emanate as the result of their self-actualization. Carl Jung himself explains, in his forward to the I-Ching, that “Synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers” (Jung xxiv). Aside from the obvious parallel between Siddhartha and Gautama, their names, it is obvious that their similar countenances of radiant peace and intimated infinitude is meant to suggest that in self-actualization resides the divinity of union with the all. In less arcane language, Jolandi Jacobi explains, “…Jung speaks of an individuation process that characterizes a possibility of development immanent in everyone and that culminates in rounding out the individual into a psychic whole” (Jacobi 13). Because Siddhartha has confronted his shadow, his ego, and all of the aspects and issues of his self, he can be one with life and thus is self-actualized or enlightened. Siddhartha going through this process as a man communicates the larger potentiality within all human beings to grow and transcend.
Siddhartha is not just a story to be enjoyed; rather it details the process for self-actualization through the symbolism of Buddhism. Hesse creates a textual environment that is, therefore, instructive. Siddhartha’s confrontation with and growth from the archetypes show how the common man can achieve the same self-actualization that even the Buddha found. Hesse delivers this powerful message while remaining true to Jung’s concept of the individuation process, yet he does so by engaging the reader with the mystical symbolism of eastern religion.
Works Cited
Coward, Harold. Jung and Eastern Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985.
Fordham, Frieda. An Introduction to Jung’s Psychology. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1953.
Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. Trans. Joachim Neugroschel. New York: Penguin Group Inc, 1999.
Jacobi, Jolandi. The Way of Individuation. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.,1965.
Jung, C.G. “Foreward” The I-Ching. Trans. Richard Wilhelm. New York: Bollingen Foundation Inc, 1967.
Moacanin, Radmila. Jung’s Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism. Western and Eastern Paths to the Heart. London: Wisdom Publications 1986.
Serrano, Miguel. C.G Jung and Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships. London: Routledge &Kegan Paul Ltd, 1966.